Express yourself. It is later than you think.

postcard machine

I realised with a start yesterday that the deadline for iHanna’s DIY Postcard Swap has crept up on me while I was tied up doing other things! So I got my ass into gear and made 8 postcards…actually I made 11, but as the quality of subsequent ones got better, I found myself throwing the very blah earlier ones away.

Which is not to say that I consider these 8 to be the pinnacle of my creative abilities…I was tempted to discard a few more from this group. But let’s be practical and realistic: I have two free days left. I’m running out of time. I also need to make some journals for the craft fair this weekend, as a matter of urgency. So these will have to do…and I hope I can make another two postcards this morning, so I can get cracking on the bookbinding.

It quickly became clear , as I put these collages together, that I deeply dislike using commercially printed papers. Although I have my own small stash of scrapbook papers and other decorative elements from the scrapbooking craze of several years ago, when it came to putting collages together, I almost always tossed the pre-made decorative stuff in preference for papers and media that I had made, myself. I still used some patterned papers or magazine pages for some cards, but I tried to keep them minimal.

This lady with a cactus, for example, uses commercial papers for the cactus pot, and the floral background. The paper clay face was made in a Sculpey doll mold. Everything else was painted, printed, drawn or stitched by hand.

This one doesn’t look like much, but I’m very proud that everything used for this collage is my own work: painted textures and fragments of old lino prints that I did during a printmaking course many years ago. Totally organic.

A cartoonish painting of a cat that was in an old sketchbook…I love finding uses for odds and ends like these.

An unsuccessful little painting on canvas got cut up and I drew the bottle around it, and stuck it down to commercial scrapbook paper and a scrap of Thai ‘money’ for the dead.

The other half of that underworld bill, on a page from one of my favorite drawing magazines, Le Gun, and another unsuccessful painting of…toothpaste? Go figure.

A second paper clay character…I’ve nicknamed her Little Zen Riding Hood. A stencilled background, some linoprinting, a coloured photocopy of some cross-stitching I did on paper, and the red cloak is cut from Unsuccessful Painting #3 (I did a whole series of these lumpish duds).

In emulation of a line from one of Joanna Newsom’s songs (Bluebeard) I wrote “What a woman does is walk paths of the unconscious…it is not a question of straying or not straying.” Deep, huh? LOL

Hey, Dinny, Thanks! But they are just faces pressed into a commercial Sculpey mold, so I really can’t take any credit for these. All I did was paint them a cream colour, and then tiny dots (blended in) of magenta for the cheeks, nose, chin and eyelids. Also, some drawing pen details on the eyelashes. Easy-peasy.

I looked it up and got inspired, perhaps I will try it out, make a few cards and if it goes well, join for the autumn session. Well, I will see. Just being inspired about the idea is a first step! … as if I have the time… 😉